


Too Much Heart

by AngelicGrace



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Castiel/Dean Winchester One Shot, Destiel - Freeform, Ficlet, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, POV Third Person, Pre-Slash, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 15:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4310274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelicGrace/pseuds/AngelicGrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The other angels used to whisper that God made him wrong, that He gave Castiel a little too much heart for him to be pure angel. And maybe they were right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first post on AO3, and I haven't done much fic writing so far, so I really hope anyone who reads this could comment what they think of it. Constructive criticism is always appreciated :)

The other angels used to whisper that God made him wrong, that He gave Castiel a little too much heart for him to be pure angel. And maybe they were right.

Before Castiel became a warrior, he was a dreamer. He dreamed of choices not bound by fate and destinies written in the stars. Castiel had imagination and dreamed of breaking free, and so his siblings attributed it to his heart.

And when a young Castiel dreamily wandered Earth's young shores, his eyes fixed on the stars, his brothers had to yank him sharply back up to the heavens for a scolding.

"Don't step on that fish, Castiel. Big plans for that fish." He obeyed, of course. The word 'rebellion' hadn't been invented yet. But there was something in him that was different (he knew it). He was not the good little soldier he aspired to be. When he was young, he prayed every day to his Father to wipe away the scraps of humanity lurking in his grace. His Father never answered, but Naomi did. Every few centuries, when Castiel's doubts would resurface, she would fix him. 

 _Clear._  
_Program._  
_Repeat._

Sometimes it was the tears that gave him away, or the stab of pain in his heart as he watched humanity fight amongst themselves, like life wasn't precious enough as it is. Sometimes Naomi saw his strangeness in the small smile that would grace his lips as he watched a tiny human couple pointing out constellations and dancing under the light of the stars. 

Humanity.

Castiel saw himself in them. He saw their curiosity, their light, and their aspirations. He listened to every single child’s wish upon a star, though he never answered a single one. His heart softened, and Naomi pounced.

 _Clear._  
_Program._  
_Repeat._

  
He remained a blank-faced soldier for centuries. Then, on November 2, 1983, Castiel found himself listening for answers in the prayer of a four-year old boy, a boy with too much sadness in him all at once and far too soon.

_Mommy told me that angels were watching over me, but she’s gone now. Daddy said the fire took her away. So where was her angel? Where’s mine?_

Castiel listened to the first and last prayer of Dean Winchester, and watched as the little faith the boy possessed slipped off his lips and drained out of his eyes.

And so, when hellhounds descended on the man twenty years later, dragging him down to hell, Dean did not pray. Castiel listened and hoped for his prayers as he fought his way through hell, but all the angel heard were the tortured shrieks of the damned. He followed the pain-laden screams of Dean Winchester for decades, and in that time, not one prayer escaped the man’s bloody lips.

And after thirty years, when the Righteous Man first shed blood in hell, his eyes blackened in self-loathing and savage pleasure as he carved and cut his victims on the rack until they begged for mercy. Castiel saw it all; the good, the bad and the ugly, all wrapped up into one broken, beautiful man.

And ten years later, as he raises the Righteous Man from perdition, as fate had planned all along, Castiel finds that something that always set him apart, the weakness that haunted him for millennia. He finds love in the soul of Dean Winchester, and he now knows why he used to weep silently above bloodstained battlefields, and why he smiled as he watched a chubby little girl take her first steps into her mother's waiting arms. 

And though he suddenly understands so much more, he does not anticipate that love will make him Fall. Castiel does not know that, in Dean’s book, he will go from “Castiel” to “Cas”, from a tentative ally to a fiercely loyal friend, and maybe even something more. He does not know that his love for humanity will avert the Apocalypse, _the grand story; we ripped up the ending, the rules, and destiny._

He has not looked up at the stars in centuries, but Castiel sees constellations in the freckles on Dean’s face, and the brightness of galaxies in the man’s soul. Dean Winchester is a star, and maybe Castiel is too, because 

_he_

__is_ _

___falling_ _ _

 

(the way stars often do).

But his love is not a weakness. Yes, it's different from the distant regard his siblings hold for humanity, but it's better. And maybe God didn't mean to make Castiel this way, but he doesn't really care either way. He's making it up as he goes.

 


End file.
